Statement by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on H.R.2587

Instead of creating good jobs, Tea Party Republicans are wasting time and playing partisan politics. H.R. 2587 is an over-reaching, special interest bill that advances the interests of corporate donors while attacking working people, their rights and their jobs. It’s one more example of an anti-worker agenda that’s bad for America and bad for the middle class.

H.R. 2587 is aimed at protecting a major corporate donor that an independent agency has charged with breaking the law. But it goes even further – it creates sweeping changes to laws that protect jobs and working families’ livelihoods. It would make it easier for companies to ship jobs overseas by removing the NLRB’s ability to hold corporations accountable. It guts the NLRB’s power to protect women or African Americans who join together to protest race or sex discrimination if their employer decides to transfer the work somewhere else instead of addressing the discrimination. It would leave the NLRB powerless to protect workers who refuse to stay on an unsafe job—the company could just move the work rather than fix the problems.

The American people are calling on Congress to focus on job creation. Shame on those who are pursuing a political agenda that does the bidding of big corporations. Members of the Senate should see this legislation for what it is – a distraction from the difficult work ahead of us to address the nation’s stalled economy.